Dr. Stéphanie López-Villamil, Ana María Díez, Alejandro Gómez, Abdullahi Mire, María Guevara, and James Milner participate in the panel discussion at R-Space in Geneva. Building Bridges Across Regions: Refugee-Led Dialogue Between East Africa and Latin America. 15 December 2025.

On 15 December 2025, LERRN and R-SEAT co-hosted a panel discussion at R-Space in Geneva on the theme “Building Bridges Across Regions: Refugee-Led Dialogue Between East Africa and Latin America”.

Timed to coincide with the Global Refugee Forum Progress Review meeting, the event was a critical opportunity to highlight the shared challenges and opportunities to levering the expertise of refugee leaders in developing and implementing more efficient, effective and accountable responses to displacement. With the room at full capacity and with many key partners in attendance, the event highlighted the critical role that enhanced and meaningful refugee participation can play in ensuring that collective action to respond to the needs of refugees can be mobilized at a time of financial collapse for the humanitarian response sector and growing political skepticism around both multilateralism and upholding core refugee and human rights protection principles.

The event centered around the global launch of LERRN’s synthesis of its work on refugee-led organizations in East Africa and the Middle East and its more recent work, supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, on refugee leadership in East Africa and South America. Presented by the author, Dr. Stéphanie López-Villamil, the synthesis highlights the crucial role of refugee-led responses across regions, in areas as diverse as service delivery, advocacy, and policy development. By outlining the various ways that refugee leaders navigate shifting political opportunity structures, López-Villamil detailed the use of multi-level advocacy used across contexts to address power inequalities and enhance access and impact. The lessons of this analysis are particularly relevant given the moment currently faced by the global refugee regime.

The event then featured responses and perspectives from refugee leaders working in diverse contexts. In her intervention, MarĂ­a Guevara, Latin America Lead for R-SEAT, highlighted how the synthesis report captured the strategies employed by refugee-led organizations across Latin America and how the expertise of refugees is increasingly being recognized in national processes and regional efforts, such as the Cartagena +40 process. Abdullahi Mire, winner of the 2023 Nansen Refugee Award and founder of the Refugee Youth Education Hub, highlighted how the strategies outlined in the report are being used by leaders in places like the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya to navigate the profound consequences of collapse of funding to UNHCR in 2025. Alejandro GĂłmez, with FundaciĂłn Refugiados Unidos in Colombia, noted that while there has been an increased recognition of the substantive value of refugee participation, it is important to highlight that disproportionate barriers remain for many, especially leaders from the LGBTQI+ community. Ana MarĂ­a DĂ­ez, President of CoaliciĂłn por Venezuela, noted that while refugee leadership had contributed to critical policy changes at the national and regional level, such as the regularization of status for some 2 million Venezuelans in Colombia, more work is needed to change the perception of refugees from a burden to a state to understanding refugees as individuals with skills and abilities to contribute to their host community.

The panel discussion was followed by a lively discussion with a highly engaged audience that illustrated the relevance of the results presented in the synthesis report to situations well beyond the contexts included in the report, along with the increased relevance of these issues in advance of the anticipated election of Dr. Barham Salih as High Commissioner for Refugees by the UN General Assembly later in the week.     

The panel highlighted how the challenges and opportunities faced by refugee leaders are remarkably similar across regions. While challenges persist around issues of funding, access and capacity, refugee-led initiatives have responded by drawing on the strength of coalitions, engaging with regional processes, leveraging the combined significance of their unique access to displaced communities and their moral and expert authority, and their ability to mobilize through alternate forms of media, such as social media and virtual networks. Ultimately, the event underscored the key lessons from the research on refugee leadership and refugee-led organizations: At a time of profound need and collapsing support from traditional partners, refugee-led responses bring the combination of moral authority, proven efficiency, technical expertise, and trust-based relationships with affected communities that are urgently needed to reimagine responses to forced migration in a rapidly evolving political reality.

On the 12th of September 2025, a panel discussion titled “Towards a New Response to Forced Migration through Local Engagement Refugee Research Network” concluded the three-day LERRN 2.0 launch in Ottawa. The roundtable brought together academia and civil society partners with lived experience of displacement to present to the public the newly launched global partnership between academia and forcibly displaced communities (LERRN 2.0)

The discussion was moderated by Rez Gardi, Co-Director of LERRN and Co-Managing Director of R-SEAT. Panelists included James Milner, Co-Director of LERRN; Mustafa Alio, Co-Managing Director of R-SEAT; Ana Maria Diez of CoaliciĂłn por Venezuela; and Stephanie Lopez Villamil, South America Project Lead and Researcher.

The panel highlighted the urgent challenges facing refugees globally and emphasized the need to prioritize new ways of incorporating the expertise of people with lived experiences of forced displacement into the functioning of the global refugee system. This includes fostering trust and investing in truly collaborative relationships between academics and forcibly displaced populations. By engaging refugees and displaced communities in the co-production of research, policy, and initiatives, stakeholders can leverage local knowledge, skills, and resources to create solutions that are more effective and accountable to the communities they aim to serve.

James Milner stressed the growing fragility of the global refugee system, noting that the political and financial foundations established after World War II have become increasingly vulnerable. He explained that the new phase of LERRN—built on a collective vision for change and trust-based partnerships among academia, civil society, and refugee leaders—aims to contribute to meaningful solutions. As Dr. Milner stated, “We respond by having the courage to think differently—no single set of actors has a monopoly on the truth.”

Ana Maria Diez, drawing on her expertise and knowledge of the regional crisis in Latin America—particularly the Venezuelan displacement—emphasized that sudden, unsubstantiated funding reductions have forced many regional initiatives to shut down. She noted that the closure of the Darién Gap illustrates the grave dangers that arise when escape routes are blocked, but it does not stop people from seeking safety.

Stephanie Lopez-Villamil shared findings from her extensive research in Colombia, Chile, and Brazil, highlighting how shifts in foreign aid policies and fragile asylum systems increase risks for people seeking refuge, placing them in more vulnerable and life-threatening conditions. She also underscored the crucial role of refugee leadership in safeguarding communities.

The discussion highlighted the urgent need for the international community to re-mobilize, strengthen protections to address systemic gaps, and foster deeper collaboration with displaced-led organizations to achieve effective and sustainable solutions.

LERRN’s new six-year partnership underscores a commitment to innovation and the development of a new response framework for forced migration. Broader collaborations with RLOs around the world create more opportunities for equal research partnerships and for amplifying refugee voices in key areas such as academia.

emphasized that academia can play the role of building trust with refugees and decision-making authorities that can influence positive outcomes for people forced to flee. Collaborations with academic institutions offer platforms for shared knowledge exchange and creation of innovative responses to displacement.

Central to LERRN 2.0 is the effort to elevate the voices of forcibly displaced communities and ensure their experiences inform research, policy, and practice. The partnership aims to promote inclusive approaches that benefit both refugees and host communities, fostering hope that coordinated, courageous action can drive change even in challenging times.

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